Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler expressed relief after his side posted their first victory of the year, snapping an 11-game winless streak with a 2-0 win over Moroka Swallows at the Athlone Stadium on Tuesday.
After missing several sitters, which threatened a repeat of City’s poor form in front of goal since February, Darwin Gonzalez provided the breakthrough with some 15 minutes left and there was a late second goal from Angolan substitute Jo Paciencia.
“Obviously (the win) was massively important for us, because we needed to get that monkey off our back,” said a smiling Tinkler, who has been under pressure in recent weeks.
“The second half of the season has been quite a struggle for us to get results. One or two games we didn't perform well, but in the others, we just didn't take our chances.
“I spoke in my last press conference that the quality in that final third wasn't good enough and I thought we were heading down that same road again. First half, the chances we had. I spoke to the players at halftime and I just said to them, ‘what I'm seeing is panic. What I'm seeing is we forcing and what tends to happen when you force things, you make mistakes’, so I said we have got to go out in the second half and play with a little bit more composure, a little bit more control and that we still had 45 minutes to go get that goal,” he added.
'IT'S NOT OVER'
The win kept City in seventh place but now only three points behind fourth placed Sekhukhune United.
“I’m happy for the boys, happy for the club. But it's not over. It's still three games left. There are still targets to try and achieve. But, yeah, this allows us to turn that corner,” Tinkler added.
“We're going to push because I'm that type of coach, I want to win every game that I'm playing. So we want to make sure that we obviously finish in the eight and secure that. And our next game will not be easy … TS Galaxy are a good team, tough team. But it's going to be a six pointer, if we ever want to stand that chance of finishing the top four.”
City host Galaxy at the Cape Town Stadium on Sunday (live on SuperSport at 3pm).